Grading Capitals defense against Sharks

The Washington Capitals report cards are almost over. We graded the goaltending and the offense and it’s time to grade the defense from yesterday’s win over the San Jose Sharks.

Overall I thought the defense played well in front of Darcy Kuemper. That was huge. 30 shots and only one of them going in will do that.

Here’s how the defense lined up last night:

Fehervary-Carlson

Sandin-TvR

Haman Aktell-Jensen

The scratches were Lucas Johansen and Alex Alexeyev.

The Caps as a team did a good job of staying out of the penalty box. There was no power playas at all from the opposition. They also had 27 hits while the Sharks had 18. The Caps also had 20 blocks. Darcy Kuemper did the rest.

Hardy Haman Aktell had an assist on the Caps first goal of the game. It came in the third period as he helped set up Dylan Strome’s sixth goal of the season with a secondary assist. John Carlson had two secondary assists of his own on goals for Tom Wilson and Evgeny Kuznetsov.

The defense also played good on Friday night. They won over the Minnesota Wild 3-2 in the shootout. That game saw the Wild go 0 for 5 on the power play. The Caps had 16 blocked shots and eight hits.

The defense was OK on Wednesday night against the New Jersey Devils but if you take out the second period where the Caps allowed four goals, they shut it down in the first and third period.

Back to last night’s game. I thought Hardy Haman Aktell had the best game among the blue line. He had two hits, his first NHL point in that assist for Strome’s goal and had a plus/minus of plus one.

Grade A: After allowing the game’s first goal the defense shut it down. Defense wins championships and it also wins hockey games.